


They Don't Talk About It

by Chekhov



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), M/M, Mutual Pining, Other, Slow Burn, They Absolutely Know They're Dating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2020-12-27 11:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21118007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chekhov/pseuds/Chekhov
Summary: Sometimes, the things which are left unsaid are so much louder than the words between quiet pauses. A thing which has been omitted purposefully from a conversation is a hidden crevice full of meaning, a cave pregnant with something that will roll aside the stone of silence and emerge later (three days, traditionally). The hesitation of the lips is a trail of breadcrumbs left for the other person to follow.They both know what is between the lines.They had known it for some time. They might have argued specifically what that time was - had they ever had a chance to discuss it.But they never did.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is more like a collection of snippets I've been writing on and off again that are all united under one common theme. Because of this, the chapters are all different lengths and slightly different styles. I intend to see it through to the end, but you can absolutely read them as separate works.

In the beginning, there was nothing.

That is not to say there wasn’t anything significant. Some may say that nothing is the most important thing we’ve got.

They also say that the universe is mostly space. The largest distances between the stars are full of vast emptiness. Even in the yawn between two atom nuclei we find a void comprised of mostly nothing. 

Nothingness is essential in its own way. It is allowed to exist in a non-specific manner. It defines the edges of where things are and where they stop being. Instead of filling an expectation of something or other, it is there to pool into the gaps, rest in between the lines, create silence and give meaning to the contrasting opposite.

Sometimes, the things which are left unsaid are so much louder than the words between quiet pauses. A thing which has been omitted purposefully from a conversation is a hidden crevice full of meaning, a cave pregnant with something that will roll aside the stone of silence and emerge later (three days, traditionally). The hesitation of the lips is a trail of breadcrumbs left for the other person to follow. 

You see, when you neglect to say enough about something, the negative space outlines the very thing you mean to say very clearly. Talk enough about the curves of a vase and you will eventually hint at the silhouette of two faces. Discuss the room at length and make the elephant ever larger. And this, in itself, can be quite a good method of communication, if you have the patience for that sort of thing. 

Which it turns out, they do.

They both know what is between the lines. They have to know. The consequences of  _ not _ knowing would be rather disastrous. A brushfire set at the fault of uncontrolled smoke signals. A house up in flames because one of them left the candle out for the other. A blazing library of texts, only written and never read, the flames eagerly licking up the words, and then swallowing the pages as well for good measure. 

Knowing, too, is disastrous in its own way, but it is a quieter sort of disaster. A dull ache that becomes companionable after years spent with it. A low heat, the kind that kindles embers and keeps the fire burning low enough to keep one warm, but not so much so it burns. 

They had known it for some time. They might have argued specifically what that time was - had they ever had a chance to discuss it. 

But they never did. 

Instead, they chose to give meaning to only the things that were never mentioned out loud. They outlined the silhouette of what was said in meaningless other conversations that filled their time pleasantly and then looked into the things which would remain, for many centuries, unsaid between them, and were pleased to find that for the most part, despite saying a great deal many different things, the things that they do  _ not _ say were quite similar.

This is what keeps this whole thing from going up in flames, coincidentally. 

This is the rule of thumb that two very different creatures decide to settle on, quite of their own accord. This is a case of natural convergent evolution; that is to say, they both come to this conclusion in similar ways, but from opposite sides of the taxonomic reasoning tree. In the end, it serves the same purpose - survival. 

And that is how it was, and that is how it would remain, for a long time. 

They don’t talk about it.


	2. The Garden, 4004 BC

“No!” says the angel, indignant. “That wouldn’t be funny at all!”

Crawley rips his gaze away like a bandaid. His eyebrows dance elaborately on his face to make up for what his tongue would rather do, the words it would form. He doesn’t let it. Best not push his luck. An angel, even an unarmed one, can still be dangerous. 

Above them, the sky does something reminiscent of an animal’s growl. It sounds like a threat to Crawley. Aziraphale considers it a polite word of warning. It’s a glass half full, glass half empty sort of deal, but glasses haven’t been invented yet, so an argument about it is hard to get off the ground. Coincidentally, the concept of benign quibbling is also in its fetal stages, but that’s about to be remedied by two very forward-thinking entities. 

“I think there’s a bit of rain coming on,” says the angel. His voice has returned to its more amicable tones, and Crawley finds himself surprisingly pleased. He doesn’t really think about the implications of being pleased about an angel’s tone of voice. It seems rather useless an emotion to have about his enemy, but it can be written off easily enough into a footnote about self-preservation. He is halfway through penning this footnote (“ _ When in a good mood, Angel seems to forget that he is meant to stab me. Not being stabbed works in favor of my evil-doing, would repeat this experience again. _ ”) when the said angel knocks the metaphorical quill from his hand rather rudely: “Do you suppose it’s going to be holy water?”

Crawley whips his head around, plastering his gaze back to the other’s face. “Wot?” he asks, and then, to make up for the heightened tone, amends with a lower rumble. “The rain?”

“Yes,” says Aziraphale and nods skyward. “It is going to be coming from the heavens, after all.”

For a moment Crawley follows his gaze, squinting disapprovingly for good measure. “Wh--no,” he protests with a doubtful twist of his lips. “Why would they do that? Would be a colossal waste, wouldn’t it?”

The angel doesn’t pause his observations. He’s homed in on a nearby grey cloud and is currently practicing something of a glare, which will later be utilized across the globe in a familiar, disapproving ‘you’d better not’ way.

“I mean,” continues Crawley, joining him in looking at the same spot. “There’s the water cycle set up and everything. Why not just pop the ON switch on that?” 

“I suppose,” allows Aziraphale. A frown is still lodged - somehow - between his eyebrows. “But we are rather far out in the desert, aren’t we?”

“The garden’s right there, it’s got lakes and waterfalls aplenty.” Crawley gestures vaguely behind them. 

Aziraphale gives a small shake of his head. “No, but you see, these clouds rolled in from the east.”

Crawley makes an assessment that requires a few more maneuvers of his head. His hair twirls dramatically each time he does so. He rather likes having hair, he finds. Many things he can do with it. He shakes the curls around a bit more than is physically necessary to the observation of the cardinal directions. “That ain’t east,” he says finally, once the quota of hair-flips has been fulfilled. “That’s north.”

“What?” asks Aziraphale, finally tearing his eyes away from the approaching cloud and looking at Crawley incredulously. “No it’s not. North is over there.” He points left, over Crawley’s shoulder. “I should know, I’m the Angel of the Eastern Gate. Not the Northern Gate, thank you very much.”

Crawley dedicates a few more hair-flips to scrutinous head-swiveling. “You sure? They didn’t mislabel your desk at the office or something?” The long-suffering (not yet, but it’ll be true soon enough) look the angel gives him ricochets off of his mind with a surprisingly pleasant spark.  _ This is fun _ , he thinks, a child digging its fingers eagerly into the sandbox to discover more shiny rocks. “Alright. So you really think the water’s holy?”

He doesn’t believe it - not really - which is why he doesn’t move. Surely the angel would like to make him a little nervous with such a suggestion, given that he is now sword-less and in less of a stabby mood, but two can play at that game. Crawley has ideas about a fun thing he’s just thought up called Playing Pretend, which is an offshoot of Lying. He imagines it will be a lot of fun to do a bit of Pretend Screaming and Pretend Writhing and Pretend Melting in front of the angel when the rain starts. It’ll be even more fun to then pop back up again, right as ...well... rain, and laugh maniacally. That’ll teach him to make empty threats.

But before he can properly prepare himself for his first attempt at Improv Theatre, a shadow sweeps over him. It’s followed shortly by some sort of noise.

Pattering. Raindrops on feathers.

With more of a start than he would have liked, Crowley sweeps his eyes upward and finds himself shocked to be staring at white feathers just over his shoulder. For a moment he almost flinches back - not, as one might think, from fear of being knocked off of his feet, but instead from a sudden and very unwelcome deja vu. 

Then he realizes - they’re not his wings. They’re the angel’s. 

Then he realizes - the angel’s shielding him. From the rain. 

Then he realizes--

Nothing. He has no further observations. He only has an empty sort of blink to himself, and, in about two seconds, he’s shuffling closer to get more cover.

Above them, the rain intensifies. Whether it’s holy or not, Crawley doesn’t know. The angel, expressionless, is staring out into the desert where the two humans have gone, and his wing keeps hovering, protecting the demon he’s only just met from a potentially very early retirement. 

He keeps it there for the whole hour while they watch the storm rolling through, until the sky above them is somewhat clear again.

They don’t talk about it. 


	3. Mesopotamia, 3004

**Mesopotamia, 3004**

He sees Aziraphale again - not soon, but eventually. 

And again - it’s just before the rain starts. 

Crawley remembers rain. He’s not afraid of it, not really. He knows it isn’t holy and it can’t hurt him. This time the proposed function is much worse than a quick spray-down of demon-killer to clear the freshly mowed lawn. 

“You can’t kill _ kids _ !”

Aziraphale swallows and doesn’t deign to look at him but Crowley can see the steely hardening of his eyes, the stiffening of the soft jaw, the resigned roll of the shoulders. He remembers their time on the wall, remembers a similar expression on the angel. He isn’t yet fluent in the other’s body language but he’s getting the hang of it, already picking up phrases here and there, catching the gist. He knows what’s coming, what the reply will be. 

_ Ineffable _ . The word curls on Crawley’s tongue like a slug, writhing and distasteful. He’ll never be able to eat slimy things, never be good about swallowing something he doesn’t like the taste of. Questions unexplained. Rules unjustified. This word - this  _ ineffability _ \- is no exception. He’s a demon of habit. A picky eater.

The sky rumbles again. They both regard it as a warning now. There’s no arguing about cups half full or empty. They’ll all be full to overflowing soon enough, and this time, the bickering seems too bitter a sport. Crawley almost wonders if there’ll be another wing to shield him from the onslaught of rain. 

It doesn’t happen, of course.

But something else happens instead, something more significant. And it’s not about the wing. It’s not about the rain.

It’s about the way Aziraphale watches him ducking into the mud huts to grab baby baskets and float them out on the water that’s already at his knees. Sees him hoisting children onto rooftops. Looks at him pulling a rudimentary float by a knotted rope held high in his fist as the mud sloshes at his waist. 

It’s about the way that Aziraphale disappears for hours, and then returns with a proper boat (From where? Surely a miracled one wouldn’t go unnoticed by his Head Office.) and begins to pull the children he’s rescued aboard. Steps out and walks on the water to the roof to pull a sobbing woman into his arms and then carries her onto the boat as well. Takes the rope from Crowley, hoists it over his shoulder, digs his sandals into the crashing wave that doesn’t give beneath him and begins to pull.

The boat, full of children as it is, avoids sinking due to an unspecified amount of miracles. Some of them are demonic. Some are angelic. It doesn’t matter at this point. No one is keeping track.

The rain comes down harder and eventually Crawley’s feet can no longer find the ground. He has to fight against the tide bearing at him from the side. He can swim alongside them - for a while at least. He’s a strong enough swimmer, has no issue with water aside from the fact that it can no longer hold him (a side-effect of the Fall, though not one of the worst ones.). He, in turn, is polite enough to not hold it against the water itself. 

Up ahead, Aziraphale pulls. The storm is tearing at him from all sides, but instead of dying down like a fire, he only shines brighter. His robe is a lighthouse, a pillar, a beacon at the hull. His back is rounded from strain, and his hair is running in white-gold streaks down his face.

It takes an hour of unlikely struggling fueled by pure demonic stubbornness, but eventually Crawley lags behind. He tries to grab the edge of the boat once or twice, but then lets go when he realizes he might only be adding more weight to it. He is grimly satisfied with the fact that they are, at least, heading for the mountains. There’ll be higher ground there and if they can reach the cliffs, there’s hope yet. The Almighty can’t keep up the tantrum forever, surely? The rain will die down sometime. How much of a grudge can you really hold against your own creation? 

A rhetorical question. He regrets thinking it as soon as it’s formed in his mind.

“You should get in the boat.”

The bubble of habitual introspection is abruptly popped and Crowley sputteres, nearly swallows water in the process. Above him, standing among the waves, is the angel. He’s talking to him, staring at Crowley writhing like the snake he is in the torrents. It would be demeaning, in any other circumstance, and Crowley is prepared to be offended at being talked down to (literally) - except Aziraphale is making it incredibly hard. He’s shiny as a goddamned supernova, drenched in literal divine light, and yet he’s also half-crouching, leaning down towards Crowley and staring at him with ocean-blue eyes that are tired, desperate, and half-covered in drenched white hair. He looks like how Crowley feels. Except better, because of the whole angelic glow. 

“You can’t swim forever,” says Aziraphale. 

“And you can’t drag it forever, especially with me making it heavier,” Crawley retorts, but he allows the angel to pull him over to the edge and grabs on. While he pants and pushes the wet twists of hair out of his face, he makes a mental note to think up an excuse as to why it matters. He should be looking to make the angel’s rescue job more difficult. The problem is, it was his job to begin with. Now he’s not sure which one of them is doing what. The lines are blurred out here - everything is blurred. Eventually, he decides to just lie on the report and be done with it. He’s too exhausted for any other options. 

“I thought I could make it to the mountains, but I’m afraid it’s impossible,” says Aziraphale, crouching on the water beside him. “The boat isn’t going to take it. They’ll all die before we get there.”

“All according to the Great Plan, then?” says Crowley bitterly, and then frowns harder when pain flashes across the angel’s face. Not willing to analyze it for too long, he looks at the humans who are huddled against each other merely a foot away. There’s kids - too many kids. It’s stupid, and they’re small, and why are the animals spared, and not them? What difference is a few kids going to make?

Questions, questions, questions and no answers. If he didn’t know physics better, he might guess all that thinking is making him heavier. But he does know better. He knows the Almighty well enough to venture a supposition that She’s the one pressing him down with her thumb, just to see what happens. It’s a game of Her own devising, this whole Doubt equals Gravity squared business. But it’s backfired. Even now, when he’s already succumbed to the siren call of the Sulphur pool, it only makes him want to question harder out of spite, just to see how much lower he’s willing to go until he hits the ground again. (If you can call it that anymore. It’s likely that the paperwork for changing it into an official Seafloor category has already been filed.)

He looks at Aziraphale again, and then beyond Aziraphale - into the open waters. “There’s a bigger boat,” he says finally. “And it can’t have gotten far.”

The refusal is so immediate Crawley has no time to be surprised. Then he remembers who he’s talking to. “We can’t go against God’s Plan, Crawley,” the angel protests. 

“You mean  _ you _ can’t,” replies the demon.

They look at one another. Really look - not something they’ve done many times at this point. It’s much like it was before, when they first met. Back then the angel cried ‘ _ I gave it away _ !’ and Crawley, fool that he was, turned his head and laid himself down on the track in front of the bullet train of Aziraphale’s piercing blue eyes. The velocity of incoming feelings, accompanied by a tell-tale whistling in his ears, is not unfamiliar this time around. But this time around, Crawley dares to hold his gaze. He’s developed, it seems, a scientific curiosity about what it would be like to be run over. (It’s the beginning of a habit, but he doesn’t know it yet.)

He searches, and in turn, Aziraphale seems to be searching his eyes for something as well. Strangely enough, neither of them flinch away. Crawley prepares himself for it - after all, angels are not supposed to be easy to look at. And yes, it’s difficult to stare at Aziraphale, but not for the reasons he thought it would be. His demonic retinas aren’t burning. His core isn’t being scorched by righteous fire. 

Maybe, Crawley thinks momentarily, there’s something wrong with him. Maybe his Angel Allergy is experiencing a brief down-time. 

The problem is - Aziraphale isn’t flinching away either. He isn’t pulling back his lips in disgust. He’s not looking at Crawley like he’s the scum of the earth. 

They’re looking at each other like they’re having a conversation. 

The next part is curious - Aziraphale says nothing. He also  _ does _ nothing when Crawley crawls into the boat. He does nothing when Crawley grabs two infants and tucks them into his arms, and then grabs a third - yanking her mercilessly from the arms of her mother.

Aziraphale says nothing. He simply watches as Crawley unfurls his wings and, serenaded by the fearful wails of the women, takes off with the children into the weeping sky. 

The boat - now a bit lighter - is soon merely a speck beneath him. Crawley looks down, and he sees the angel looking up, those blue eyes locked on his. Then he turns wing, rights himself, and reels off into the storm. 

He returns to the boat an hour later, takes more children, and disappears again. They repeat this process three more times, until all the children are gone.

They both know what he’s doing.

Each time, the angel doesn’t move to stop him.

They don’t talk about it.


	4. Many places, 2000BC ~ 500BC

The phenomenon repeats. 

There’s a name for this repetition. It’s something that starts with ‘pat’ and ends with ‘tern’, and the first half of that word is exactly what Crawley gives himself, on the back, when he notices it. Then he considers whether it’s really such a good thing. 

Here’s the thing about patterns - they are good things only if you are an organized creature. But when you are a demon of chaos and havoc, when you pride yourself on mischief and wiles, the concept of any sort of pattern becomes questionable to your reputation. Predictability is not exactly the sort of thing Crawley strives for.

Except that this phenomenon is the least predictable thing out there.

The pattern in question is this:

They meet. Again, and again, and again. There’s years between each meeting, sometimes decades, once, even a century. But reliably enough, they always boomerang back around to each other. Crawley likens it to two comets that are looping around something invisible, a larger mass neither of them can see but are inevitably drawn to. 

Sometimes it’s a flyby. Sometimes they collide. Each time, he feels the vectors shifting just a bit, and somehow, his orbit adjusts. It’s minimal, but there is collateral damage. Bits of him are chipped off - usually the bits he doesn’t mind letting go of, like his presumption that Aziraphale will eventually smite him. Like his annoyance at having his wiles thwarted. Like his defenses and his common sense and his--

Well. It doesn’t matter, really, in the long run. 

But there’s the pattern. 

Their first time in Egypt is an accident. 

There is a celebration among nobility. There’s a long table, heket spilling over the rims of glasses, there’s honey, there’s the harvest. The party is, like the others, crowded, and they are both surprised to meet each other’s eyes and recognize a familiar face. Immediately, Crawley can see Aziraphale’s lips forming around the syllables of his name. He, in turn, sways a bit and lifts his clay cup. Some barley beer comes sloshing out, and he toasts silently to the angel from across the table between them. Aziraphale is decked out in some sort of religious garb. They are too far away to hear each other over the boisterous voices of the people surrounding them.

Crawley smiles with what he hopes looks like poorly feigned innocence and takes a sip of his drink, and then turns and slips back into the crowd. He doesn’t see Aziraphale again, doesn’t think about it - he has more important things on his mind. He finds the noble he’s after an hour or so later, tempts him - first to some more alcohol, and then to a small bribe, and then to a bit of betrayal and undermining. 

“It’ll be easy,” says Crawley into his ear, stretching out his arm across the other’s shoulders. “The officer is an idiot. Things can only get better from here.”

The nobleman strokes his dark beard and nods. “We’ll have to get rid of his subordinates too. They’re a tad more competent. And I hear he keeps company with a priest that’s rather sharp.”

“Does he?” asks Crawley with a frown. He is quite certain this is the heket talking - he has double checked their list of connections twice and he knows exactly how to orchestrate this unseating like the back of his hand. “I don’t recall anyone like that.”

“The new, light-skinned one. The one with white lamb’s hair. He might even be in attendance today.” The nobleman gestures vaguely, completely missing the way Crawley stiffens next to him.  _ The religious garments _ !  _ A priest, of course _ . “They say he can read many ancient texts. He might catch on, if he hasn’t already. I think I’ll kill him first. It’ll make the whole thing smoother.”

_ Killing is a bit much, isn’t it? _ thinks Crawley without thinking -  _ really _ thinking - about  _ why _ he’s thinking that.

The idea of sparing Aziraphale’s corporation the trouble of paperwork is not entirely new. Actually, it had also come up last time he’d been down to hell for a mandatory 40-hour meeting. It just so happened that Beelzebub was in a bad mood, and the conversation (lecture, as it were, since Hell’s HR department has a strict policy about how tolerable meetings with your superiors are allowed to be) had turned very quickly into a hypothetical ideal in which Crawley was supposed to use whatever force necessary to get any and all angels out of his way to make sure the whole business with Pharaoh Seti went as planned for the rest of their agents. 

To which Crawley thought (very quietly - he wasn’t an idiot)  _ Surely we don’t need to go that far?  _ Surely some sort of agreement could be reached? Aziraphale, he’d found, was very agreeable and non-stabby. He preferred to keep it that way. 

It has nothing to do with any virtues, of course. It’s just self-preservation.

Crawley pauses his thoughts now, assesses his minor errand again and stacks it against the bigger picture. Then he leans in closer. Goes through the motions of making a logical decision, to give himself an alibi. “We don’t have to worry about that one,” he promises.

The man looks at him, and finds himself quite unable to look away. “Won’t we?” he chokes out, but his eyes are already glassy. Crawley can see his own turmeric yellow ones reflected in them. He presses, reaches out with an invisible wing, drapes it over the man until he feels a shudder and his will bends, weak as straw. 

“No,” the demon murmurs. “He won’t be any trouble. Just... leave him alone.” 

The noble nods obediently, gaze heavy with the remaining weight of the demonic Suggestion, and Crawley pulls back and dusts off his hands and picks his beer back up. More so out of habit than concern, he glances around them. Nothing should be out of the ordinary; no one should be watching them since his wards are up and shielding them from human eyes, but he’s feeling a small sting of guilt. It can’t be coming from inside him, that would be ludicrous - so he searches across the table for the source until he finds it. 

The priest is gazing at him from behind a platter of cured meats. Lamb’s hair, wasn’t that what they called it? It’s fitting. It certainly looks like it now, well laid curls glowing practically white against the dancing fires of the torch illuminated behind him. 

Aziraphale blinks at him once. It’s likely that he’s heard everything, because there’s something like surprise on his face. It’s poorly hidden - like a blanket thrown haphazardly over a very cat-shaped lump that you know is a cat even if you can’t lift it to check underneath. 

The demon swallows his mouthful of drink and winks. 

Aziraphale looks away at once, bobbing his throat once. 

The night ends. The lamb-haired priest lives.

They don’t talk about it.

  
  


The fourth time it’s in Dholavira, and it’s almost an accident, until Crawley fucks it up.

He sees Aziraphale first, and he could just leave it at that, but there’s a curiosity in him now, and it’s harder to ignore. The streets are muddy after a hard downpour, and the white robe that miraculously keeps its hems clean is too recognizable, even with the face covered. It flaps in the wind like a sail on the ocean, summoning a gale and pulling Crawley along for the ride, a victim to sea-winds and his own damnable nosiness. 

It’s not completely inexcusable, this urge. Crawley, it just so happens, is planning to go in the same direction anyway, so it’s no trouble to add a bit of lurking to his schedule adjacent to his regular errands. After all, he’s been sent to Earth to thwart the angel’s good deeds, so really, a bit of stalking his mortal enemy is in order now and again. 

He follows Aziraphale down the winding streets, keeps in the shadows and doesn’t think too hard about why he’s doing it until they come to a street vendor.

Now at least he can claim a motive: To see what happens next, what the angel is up to and what sort of blessings he’s got planned. He presses himself to the wall and observes.

An exchange of some sort takes place. Aziraphale praises the vandor, points to one of the overdone pieces of sandstone pretending to be a flatbread, pays him with far too many coins and thanks him and then steps aside.

Here’s the fun bit - there doesn’t seem to be anything angelic about his plan. In fact, quite the opposite. 

Crawley didn’t notice back in Egypt, but he notices now - Aziraphale is eating. Rather adeptly, if the habitual motion of his jaw is anything to go by. He’s chewing up and swallowing the stuff like he’s done this dozens of times, like it’s normal and natural. There’s something slightly obscene about it, an angel engaging in such a human function. The way his teeth scrape against the harder parts of the crust, the way he can sometimes see a flash of pink tongue appear out of the corner of his mouth. The languid movement of his throat as he swallows down - why does he look like he’s enjoying himself so much?! 

The fact that Crawley watches until the bread is gone from those unbearably pristine, soft hands, is a testament to his willpower. For some reason his throat has gone dry, and he’s struggling to return his brain to its intended function. He’s just discovered something he can hold over his enemy - he has to keep it together. He thinks about possible ways to use this against the other. Something must be afoot, some sort of Godly plan he’s meant to thwart, but he can’t for the life of him figure out what it might be. Instead his brain is full of poorly tessellated images of Aziraphale’s teeth sinking into the bread crust on an endless loop.

When Aziraphale is on his way down the street again, he slips out of his hiding spot and makes his way over to the bread stall. He doesn’t bother to pay - simply motions to the cart behind the baker and makes one of the wheels pop off. It works like a charm. While the bread-maker’s eyes are elsewhere, he reaches over the piles of stacked flatbread and raisin bread and something with seeds in it, and takes one of each, tucking it behind his lapel. He’s turned around and walked away before the man is finished fixing the cart. 

Once he’s back in a less populated part of the city, Crawley yanks the baked goods out of his robe one by one and tears off bite-sized pieces and places them against his tongue. The memory of Aziraphale’s own tongue, pressing against his wrist to catch crumbs, is like a burning scar. There’s something about it he can’t let go of. A particular type of torment which isn’t his specialty. Perhaps it’s something he can utilize eventually, but dwelling on it now makes him feel odd and awkward and itchy on the inside, so he doesn’t.

Where was he? Oh, the breads. Yes. The breads, which he is holding inside his mouth at the moment, not quite chewing them over except for in the metaphorical sense. They’re fine as far as sensations go, but a bit dry for him. He’s partial to meat and eggs and is not picky enough to swallow down each one in whatever form they come to his mouth (he is a snake, after all), but this particular human invention is a bit of a stretch. He tries to eat more, but nibbling is as far as he gets before turning around and noticing that he’s being watched. 

It’s the street children - ones he knows well enough by now to not be surprised. He did come here after all, to their side of town. He’ll deny it vehemently if asked, but it’s no coincidence. Food is more scarce here, and Waste isn’t one of the seven sins. He’s not going to be doing charity work for Hell, he has enough on his hands as is. 

“What are you lot looking at?” he mutters. “Come on then.” 

As if they had been waiting, they scurry forward all at once and grab hold of his robe and reach up. 

“Yes, yes, there’s enough for each of you,” he says, faking annoyance. “Calm down, stop pulling. Here’s yours. Here’s-- no, you leave that one to him! He’s little. This one is for you. And this - this is the sweet one, you’ll like this one. No, wipe off those fingers first. Where have your hands been?” He tisks in disapproval. “Fine, then. Open your mouth, I’ll just feed it to you. Don’t you dare bite, got that? I’ve had better days feeding piranhas... Ow, for fuck’s--! Don’t bite, I sssssaid! I’ve seen ball pythons with better strike control!”

He’s absorbed in this task and he doesn’t notice a thing. This is his own fault, really, so he can’t possibly blame Aziraphale for laughing. This is exactly what the angel does when Crawley looks up and makes a very undignified sound between a hiss and a yelp at the sight of the white-clad figure at the edge of the wall. 

“I thought you’d stolen them for yourself.”

Crawley flares his shoulders with as much dignity as he can muster given the circumstances. The circumstances are that he has two of the older children hiding behind his legs and the third, youngest one, is danging by her teeth from the bread he has in his right hand. 

“Er,” he says, because that’s all he can come up with in the moment, and because he’s suddenly reminded of what it feels like to be making eye contact with the angel. “No. I mean, yes, also that. But I’ve got--” He swallows nervously.  _ Why is he nervous? _ “Plans. For these ones. They will become loyal to me. And then do lots of evil. Eventually.”  _ Smooth, very smooth. He definitely believed that _ .

Aziraphale smiles. It’s unexpected - not in the sense that Crawley doesn’t expect it to happen, but in the sense that he doesn’t expect what it would do to him.

And it does. To him. Lots of things. Lots of doing. Most of it very strange and unwelcome, and most of it he writes off to indigestion. 

It’s hard to remember what happens after, because even as an immortal creature, Crawley is not perfect. (Especially when the resulting memories involve an embarrassing amount of unsuccessful attempts to speak.) What he does commit to memory, however, is the next day, when he comes back to the same place and finds a cloth wrapped parcel full of more bread waiting for him on the edge of the stole well. 

He feeds this to the kids as well, and wonders if it bothers Aziraphale that much that he steals, or if there’s possibly another motivation for the gift. 

Either way, he never has a chance to find out.

They don’t talk about it.

  
  


The thirteenth time, it’s in Athens and is not an accident.

“Watch it,” he says, bumping purposefully into the white-clad shoulder like a stubborn goat twice wronged, determined this time to not be the one caught unawares. And then, immediately, he offers salve for the emotional wound he’s just created by softening his voice. “Oh, hello.”

Aziraphale turns to him, eyes widening comically. “Crawley!” he exclaims.

“Aziraphale,” says Crawley, cordially now that the score between them has evened out again (not that he’s been keeping track or anything). It’s something of a tell that neither of them bother to pretend the demon’s assault was not premeditated. There’s a way to doing things, and they’ve fallen into a bit of a habit. It’s nice to have traditions. 

“Fancy seeing you here.” Crawley runs his eyes over the angel’s garb, noticing how attractive Aziraphale’s exposed arms look (which he is allowed to remark on, given that he’s a demon) and crooks an eyebrow. “Literally fancy. Blessed any aristocrats lately?”

“Oh, um. No. Well.” Aziraphale’s fingers flutter over his robe and he adjusts it needlessly. “I am working, if that’s what you mean.”

“Working on what? Planning the next Symposium? You look freshly bathed.” He steps behind the angel to loop his usual circle, lips parting just a bit to allow his tongue room to taste the air - and whatever fragrance Aziraphale has indulged in this time. (Once again - normal. He’s a demon.) It’s new, a bit heavier than before, which somehow pleases Crawley. (Demon. He’s a demon.) Maybe it’s the overindulgence thing - he’s grown fond of his Earthly companion’s less angelic traits. (Okay, fine, the fondness is not particularly demonic, but Crawley feels that the soft warmth he’s plagued with in the other’s presence is merely a side-effect of the far more on-brand flashes of sinful appreciation.)

“I’m actually on my way to one,” Aziraphale admits, and begins to walk again. There’s an unspoken understanding that Crawley will follow - so Crawley does, falling in step on Aziraphale’s left side - another developing tradition. The evening is young, the sky still bright, and there’s a pleasant scent of smoked meat in the air. There were some other plans of Temptation for such a night, but they have abruptly found themselves rescheduled. His priorities have shifted a bit over the past 2000 years. 

“Who’s hosting?” he asks instead. 

“No one you know,” Aziraphale replies, already anticipating the other’s plans of interruption. “So don’t get any ideas. Just because it’s spring--”

“It’s not Cleinias, is it?” Crawley tilts his head toward the other and grins briefly.

“How did you...” Aziraphale balks and shoots him a Look. “What are you up to now, you wily serpent?” 

It’s meant to be a scalding sort of insult, he supposes, but there’s not enough heat behind it. It feels more like a nickname, a pleasantry. “Nothing much, angel,” Crawley replies in kind through a knowing smile. “Just some honest demonic work. I’m supposed to see what I can make of his son.”

The other’s nose crinkles a bit. “Alcibiades?” he asks. “Even without your help, that boy is already a handful--”

“Depends on the size of your hand,” replies Crawley and cackles cheerfully when Aziraphale whirls on him with a theatrically shocked face. “Oi, don’t smite me now. I’m just saying. If you’re heading to see his father you should know what he’s like.”

Something unpleasant flashes in Aziraphale’s eyes, but he tames it swiftly and looks away as if to appear unaffected. “He’s handsome is the problem. It’s all gone to his head.”

“Been listening to Socrates lament about him, have you?” Crawley drawls. 

“Have  _ you _ ?” the angel retorts. The noncommittal shrug (a confession in drag, for all it’s worth) confirms his suspicions and he tisks. “I should have known. That attitude is your evil doing.”

“That attitude is the result of some lucky genetic works and a spoiled lifestyle. And hey, I’m not a part of the dozens crawling into bed with him!” The demon scoffs. “If you ask me, I’m the last thing he needs! A bit of good old piety and morals would add a nice contrast to the soup of pride he’s got boiling just under the surface. It’s not as if I want to be involved, you know! I have other things I could be doing with my time! Much more pleasant things.” 

Aziraphale pauses, and Crawley nearly overshoots him and has to come to a rather inelegant stop. Looking back at the other is a stacked mistake, because he finds himself back in the oncoming-train stare of the angel’s blue eyes. It’s been a while since he’s been stupid enough to make eye contact. Even after all this time, it seems he’s still unable to build up a proper immunity to its effects. 

“What kind of things?” Aziraphale asks. He has an odd look about him - a calm, very calculating, very curious look. It’s very much unlike the wide-eyed, open-mouthed shock he likes to put on for a show. This is something much more real - something Aziraphale is actually surprised about. 

It’s strange to see it now, apropos of nothing, and stranger yet to realize that he might have been paying more attention to the angel’s facial expressions than absolutely necessary. 

“Wh--I mean...” Crawley yanks his shoulders up and searches for something to do with his hands. It would be nice if he had somewhere to put them at times like these. Some sort of small satchel or something, perhaps attached directly to his clothes. He makes a mental note of it and hurries to keep talking to cover up his uncertainty. “I don’t know. Going around town, for example... and of course other, smaller demonic acts. You know, all this big-name Tempting has a bit too much Hard Work written all over it, which is really more of a staple for Your Side, isn’t it? Sloth is more our thing, so I don’t see why I have to be on the clock all the blessed time.” He clears his throat and looks around, determined not to make the mistake of Eye Contact again, although he can feel the angel’s intense gaze on him. His tongue, the traitor, isn’t stopping: “I could be relaxing, could be having a nice time and just drinking some wine or, I don’t know, popping in to a festival. Going to see some theatre. Some music might be nice once in a while.”

Aziraphale lets out a breath he’s apparently been holding, and Crawley, abruptly realizing that he’s been rambling, shuts his trap and looks back. What he’s met with is the most astoundingly relieved facial expression he’s seen the angel wear for centuries.

“ _ Oh. _ ” It’s like a clearing of the skies after a rainstorm. Sunlight’s got nothing on the intensity of the angel’s glow. “Oh, thank goodness,” he intones. “Thank goodness, I thought it was just me.”

Crawley quirks an eyebrow. “Just you...?”

“I thought, perhaps...” Aziraphale’s cheeks have taken on a pinker tinge, but he’s still beaming, still very pleased about something. “I thought I was the only one. Thinking about going and doing other things. Theatre. Wine. The rest.” He looks down bashfully and then back up at Crawley. “It  _ is _ nice, isn’t it? To just not work sometimes? Have some down time, have a bit of a look around. Without having to do any miracles? Or, er... Temptations, in your cas, I suppose.”

The angel’s facial expression is still sublime, and Crawley can’t help staring. Without meaning to, he is relaxing, responding to some sort of primal instinct to connect with the only other being on this earth that understands him. It must be that - connection, understanding. Aziraphale’s strange effect on him is like a soothing balm being rubbed over a wound he’s forgotten he had. 

He doesn’t know he’s smiling until he opens his mouth to speak and finds his lips already parted. “It rather is, isn’t it?” he agrees. 

They look at each other some more, and it doesn’t seem odd at all. In fact, it’s oddly comfortable, in a way that’s disarming. You wake up in a soft bed, and the previous night is a blur and you don’t quite know what happened or how it happened, but you’re there now, and the level of This Is Nice despite the equal amount of I’m Not In Control immediately go to war in your head. But still, you lounge while you try to figure it out because despite the fact that maybe you didn’t choose this, how bad could it really be if it feels so good? 

Neither of them realize what’s happening until someone bumps into Crawley’s shoulder roughly and jerks them both out of the moment. He is suddenly hyper-aware that they’re standing in the middle of the street grinning like two idiots, and that isn’t exactly good for company records. Crawley knows about avoiding responsibility. Better keep on the move. 

“Right, well,” he speaks, rolling his shoulders and checking around for spying eyes for good measure. “How about this? Forget the Symposium. Let’s take ourselves a little vacation. Clock out for a bit. We’ve rather deserved it, haven’t we?”

“We rather have,” Aziraphale agrees. He turns and his gaze passes Crawley’s like a beam of sunshine. Feeling its warming pull, Crawley responds before he can stop himself - and juts out his elbow. 

It’s possibly a mistake, and Crawley knows this. He allows the seed of doubt to take root, to burn him with the brashness of his own hope. Even if he’s laid down his pitchfork and Aziraphale has hung up his halo, even if they’ve shrugged off their work uniforms and pretended for a truce (and surely it’s only pretend), that doesn’t mean they automatically stop being themselves. What are they, really, if not an angel and a demon? What is underneath their delegations, if not more proof how impossibly different they are? A Heavenly Thing and a Hellish Thing. 

And he is Hellish, Crawley knows well enough. He’s been through the costume change, he knows what’s underneath. Hellfire has a way of burning away the first layer of you, leaving you skinned and burnt in that metaphysical sense. He knows what it’s like to confront yourself after you’ve been stripped down from being naked.

Is there more to them than this? Is there more to Crawley than his snake eyes, his brimstone hair, his claws and teeth and his ineffable tendency for evil?

He’s a coiled spring, ready to swing his arm out to complete the motion to make it simply a charade, to mask his embarrassment for ever having tried such a thing - when the angel stops him.

Against all odds, Aziraphale silently takes his offer. Wraps his fingers loosely around Crawley’s forearm and nests them into the crook of his elbow. 

Doesn’t Question. Doesn’t Doubt. 

Crawley shocks into a stupor, a condition nearly as fatal as Medusa’s stare. He barely has the sense to move until Aziraphale does it for him as if nothing is the matter at all. 

“Shall we?” says the angel, his voice breaking just a bit, his cheeks glowing.

“Sure,” says the demon, and tags along, wondering what the Hell it all means. 

He never finds out.

They don’t talk about it. 


	5. Rome, 41 AD

The invitation to Patronus’ restaurant is a surprise.

It’s a surprise on Crowley’s part even though he’s the one that does the inviting.

He doesn’t mean to, really, it just kind of slips out of him. Seems right - he  _ is _ the demon. Tempting  _ is _ his job. He doesn’t need any reminders, he’s got nothing else going on in his free time (he never does, unless he’s bumped into Aziraphale) but he won’t step away from an opportunity. 

“Right, then,” he says after setting down his cup and licking his upper lip clean. “May I tempt you to... what was it again?”

“Oysters,” says the angel helpfully. His eyes focus on the demon’s mouth for some reason before hurriedly flickering back up to the new decoration covering up the demon’s eyes. He seems a bit nervous, but his smile doesn’t falter and he doesn’t rescind the offer, which is a good sign. 

“Oysters,” echoes Crowley dutifully, following the script. He adds an ad-libbed eyebrow wiggle. “Whatever those are.”

If he sounds stupid at all, the angel is kind enough not to say anything. 

They walk. This part is familiar. Crowley just barely leads, with Aziraphale hovering somewhere on the periphery. There’s an old memory of the angel’s hand on his elbow that’s eating at the edges of his mind like a moth, but he doesn’t let it bother him. It’s barely the point now, asking for more when he already has a pleasant evening lined up. It’s a breath of fresh air after Caligula, something he didn’t even know he needed (the need is minimal now, hardly a bother. Would he choose to continue to feed it if he knew the sort of insatiable monster it would later grow into?) 

The restaurant is miraculously not too crowded, which neither of them comment on. When they sit down, their knees bump together for a moment under the table - but no comments on it pass either. Crowley politely removes his leg from the equation to tuck it under the bench, and the angel turns his attention to promptly calling over the young boy to ask for the food and wine.

“Been busy, I take it?” asks Aziraphale while their cups are being filled. “Quite a lot going on recently. I imagine that would be you, doing overtime?”

“You can imagine it all you want,” Crowley grumbles. His fingers wrap around the cup and he lifts it in a half-hearted toast. “I’m taking most of the credit for it, after all. Someone has to be a witness.”

“It almost sounds like you’re not actually responsible.”

“I would reveal more, but telling the truth is a major failing in a demon.”

Instead of answering, Aziraphale takes a sip. Crowley mirrors him, pretending not to see the way the angel’s blue eyes track him over the rim of the cup. It’s easier to spy with the dark slices of quartz covering his eyes. An unexpected bonus to his latest fashion endeavor.

The platter of promised oysters arrives. The intermission to their conversation is taken up by the angel teaching him how to consume the strange squishy little things and contains many a questionable comment. At one point Crowley becomes irate with the excess of coaching and snaps ‘I  _ was  _ a snake, I do know how to swallow a great deal many things!’ which for some reason makes Aziraphale go bright red and reply testily ‘No need to brag’. Crowley will revisit that particular comment later in many of his memories, with varying degrees of internal screaming to accompany it, but in the present he fails to catch the innuendo entirely. After a few more tries the general idea of tipping his head back and allowing the salty, meaty thing to travel down his throat is familiar, so they settle back into their more relaxed conversation. This, of course, means picking up where they’d left off in their quibble.

“But surely you’re still doing something,” says the angel finally, as if he’s decided to be offended on Crowley’s behalf. “With your track record? It must be second nature by now.”

This part of the conversation is more difficult to follow, and the demon feels properly out of his depth - much like he supposes an aardvark would. “Wha?” he asks eloquently, edging the spectacles down his nose to squint at Aziraphale. 

“Tempting,” Aziraphale clarifies. “You’re quite good at it, is what I mean. No need to take credit unnecessarily. Surely you must be Demon of the Month or... or year or...  _ something _ ... Down There.”

“Demon of the Month?” echoes Crowley, unsure whether to be offended or flattered. Either the angel has missed poking fun at him or he’s legitimately trying to make him feel better through less than conventional methods. Either option is rather endearing, warms the Hellfire burning low in Crowley’s chest. He finally manages a balance on the seesaw of indignation and preening. “You think  _ I’m _ demon of the month?”

“Aren’t you?” Aziraphale feigns surprise - poorly. His eyebrows jump, threaten to do a pirouette. “But you seem to be an expert in all kinds of Tempting.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” says Crowley, now at a loss for appropriate replies. This is also a lie. Flattery from Aziraphale has significant potential for distance if previous instances are anything to go by, but the destination Aziraphale is taking them is nonetheless a mystery enough to make the map incomprehensible. Being praised for Tempting, of all things - by an angel! of all creatures - is not something he has spent a great deal of time preparing for. “Besides, I’m not-- I’m not particularly good at it. No better than your average demon.” He feels the threat of a blush coming on and hurriedly hides his face behind his cup again.

“I daresay you are,” insists the Enemy.

Crowley tilts the cup higher and upends the whole of it into his throat and then proceeds to cough dramatically. By the time he’s finished, his face is even more red, but now he has an excuse. “Wouldn’t expect you to know,” he says dismissively and wipes his mouth. “You’re an angel. Wouldn’t know a good Temptation from a bad one, now would you?”

“I daresay I would!” argues Aziraphale. His eyebrows pick their routine back up where they left off and dive down. “You might not recall, but I  _ was _ sent to earth to thwart your wiles! Among others,” he adds, though it’s obvious that in this instance, he cares less about the latter. It’s ridiculously pleasant to be a priority, but Crowley doesn’t allow himself to dwell on this. “Besides...” the angel continues, briskly, “I’ve been on the receiving end of yours often enough.”

The demon tilts his head to the side and makes a face. “What?” he demands indignantly. 

Aziraphale glances up at him in such an exasperated, holier-than-thou way that it makes Crowley’s face itch. “Temptations. Sins. The former to the latter. You’ve Tempted me to all the sins at least once, I think I know the drill.”

Crowley fumbles for a reply, struggling to grip the edges of his sanity as their conversation takes a sharp and unexpected turn. “Have not!” he protests. “I haven’t tempted you even once!”

The angel’s responding wiggle is a blatant substitute for an eye-roll. He picks up his goblet and measures Crowley with an unimpressed stare. “Do give yourself more credit. I’ve just told you you’re good at your job.”

“Wh-- The-- But--” sputters Crowley. It’s very unbecoming for a demon, all this sputtering, so he instead he curbs it and leans across the table and glares at Aziraphale over the edges of his spectacles. “Alright, give me an example.”

“The food, for a start,” replies Aziraphale immediately. “You were the one who gifted me that bread back--where was it again?”

“Dholavira,” supplies Crowley, but he’s still skeptical. “That doesn’t count! I was just-- returning the favor! Didn’t want to be indebted to you!.”

“Classic temptation to Gluttony, that was,” Aziraphale insists. He reaches for another oyster.

Crowley is too busy squinting at the table, trying to recall the encounter with more detail, to comment on the irony of the situation. “Fine,” he says eventually. “Fine, that might have been one. I don’t remember what I was thinking at the time, so, you know, autopilot. Demon and all. It’s possible. But--that’s only one!”

“Would you like me to go down the list?” asks Aziraphale nonchalantly. 

“Yes!” Crowley says. “Greed - when did I ever do that one?”

The angel’s reply is a well-executed ricochet. “Egypt. Alexandria.”

Crowley holds up a finger he means to wave back and forth, but the argument dies on his lips before it’s even formed. “Now hold on a second,” he says instead. “I’m fairly certain that’s not fair. Envy! I’ve not--”

“That’s Egypt too.” Aziraphale is not even looking at him now. Instead he’s gazing into the middle distance, lips pursed thoughtfully, as if the scene is still clear in his mind and he’s watching some cinematic reenactment of it. “Different year. Egyptian beer. You were posing as a merchant, kept winking at me and hinting you were smuggling it all out - the best lot.”

“That’s not--that’s not why I was winking!” protests Crowley, but it falls on deaf ears. “Wrath, then! I’ve never tempted you to wrath!”

Aziraphale meets his eyes, and his gaze is solid. “Stonehenge.”

“Hold on,” says Crowley again, but he can feel his argument weakening with every blow. Aziraphale, it turns out, doesn’t need a flaming sword to burn him after all. He can feel that he’s on fire already, though it’s more the kind that ignites humiliation. He doesn’t know why he feels embarrassed. Tempting is what he  _ does _ . He’s a demon! He’s  _ supposed _ to be good at tempting.

“Sloth!” he yells out desperately. “You don’t-- you’ve never--”

“That new type of pillow in Greece - that was a right pitch for Sloth,” replies his sworn enemy, not even hesitating. “Nearly worked, too.”

Crowley reaches up and rubs the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe this.” He closes his eyes and tries to slow their hurtle down this path. He can vaguely see where it ends. The signs are all posted along the road. He knows he needs to read them to see where the dead end is, if maybe they need to think twice about what they’re saying, but he’s not yet adept at that. (He never will be.) Against his better judgement, he says: “Pride.”

Aziraphale pauses at that. Finally. Crowley can feel them slowing down, and he breathes a sigh of relief. That is, until Aziraphale softens in an unexpected way. “Well, you--you do encourage... That is to say. You do give me a few too many complements.”

The demon recoils, offended. “I what?!” he exclaims, hand to his chest in abject horror.

“When you’re drunk,” says Aziraphale with a curious flush on his cheeks. “You tend to be rather... gracious. Kind. I suppose it comes with the territory. Silver-tongued serpent and all that. That would count for Pride, wouldn’t it?”

“Hardly!” protests the serpent, but he’s sweating from the stress of it all. “Me - kind! If Hell gets wind of that sort of accusation I’ll be put on trial for treason! It’s not a demon’s job to be kind! That’s not intentional!”

“Doesn’t have to be,” argues the angel. “Could be the byproduct of all your Tempting and Sinning. The point is, you’ve tried them all with me.”

Crowley fumes indignantly. To think he’d stooped so low as to be called  _ kind  _ by an angel. “Tried them all, have I?” he says venomously. “Gone down and ticked off every sin?”

“Indeed,” says Aziraphale. “How many of them are there again? Not my specialty, you see. I can never quite recall.”

“Seven,” says Crowley; a kneejerk reaction. “Gluttony, Envy, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Pride and--”

Aziraphale lifts his eyes to Crowley’s, and for a brief moment, the world slows down. Perhaps it’s an intentional miracle or perhaps it’s the type of time-is-slowing-down phenomenon that humans experience right before death. In the extra minutes, hours, days Crowley drags out of that one second of eye contact, his anger becomes secondary. His frustration, a focused burn of the magnifying glass eases off of his own hurt ego. (Tempting Aziraphale to Pride by clawing at his own. There might be something to that. In fact, wasn’t that curious? He starved while Aziraphale ate, not because there was not enough at the table for both of them, but because his own Gluttony craved something that isn’t wrapped in cheesecloth. His Greed slept as Aziraphale leafed through whispering parchments worth piles of gold. His Sloth toiled away for hours to produce the desired results of watching the angel roll back against the pillow and sigh a smile. His Envy, his Wrath, his--  _ Oh _ .) 

And suddenly Crowley can see the dead end sign, and he knows what’s written on it, loud and clear, and he thinks:  _ Fuck _ . 

His throat has gone dry, and someone must have forgotten to turn off the gas down in Hell because he’s absolutely on fire right now, and he can see the reflection of the flames in Aziraphale’s apple-red cheeks. He can see the cliff they’re about to roll off, but he can’t think of a single way to slam the breaks. Worse yet, he’s not entirely sure he  _ wants _ to.

“Tried them all, have I?” asks Crowley quietly, because he’s an idiot with no sense of self-preservation.

Aziraphale hums and brings his goblet back up to his lips to cover his mouth. It’s quiet suddenly. Both of them are occupied with not counting. Not listing out the sins they already named (and one they haven’t) while curling their fingers under the table. Both of them are very pointedly looking away at different parts of the room. Aziraphale is licking his upper lip to clear the drop of wine. Crowley is studying the construction of the window as if he plans to start a career in architecture. It’s no longer a far-fetched idea, because he definitely no longer knows if he can handle all this Tempting.

“Well,” he says finally, because one of them has to do  _ something _ before the sun goes down. “I suppose it doesn’t count for anything much if none of the Tempting worked.”

Aziraphale sets down his wine. “I wouldn’t say that,” he replies, and then freezes. Some fear crosses his expression, immediately followed by a stone-faced resolve, like he’s ready for the floor to open up and swallow him. He bites his lip and closes his eyes as if there’s a swear word just behind his teeth that was just about to follow. 

Crowley wants to shove his fingers between his jaws and wrench them open, hear the curse that he deserves. He wants validation, to know he’s not alone. He wants to know that they are both on this chariot in a downhill race, and neither of them knows exactly how they got there. Misery loves company. 

But while the ride is fun, the fall is not. A near death experience is best enjoyed over and over and over again. It would be a pity to only feel it once before the curtain. 

“Doesn’t count,” grunts Crowley, voice barely functioning as if he’s resurfaced from a near-drowning. 

Aziraphale hesitates visibly. “What?” he asks with a similar, half-drowned paleness to his tone.

“Doesn’t count unless you succumb to it.” Crowley reaches up, pushes the spectacles up to his eyes more firmly, and then deems it safe to gaze up at the other. “Unless you give in, it’s not on the record.”

The angel spares a glance up at him and then hurriedly drops his eyes back on his cup. “Isn’t it? That’s a rather...” He clears his throat and then starts up again, voice a little stronger: “That’s a rather interesting system.”

“Yeah,” mutters Crowley. “The more you know, huh?”

There’s a thoughtful silence. Aziraphale spends most of it looking down at the platter of oysters like fortune tellers gaze into tea leaves. His eyes stroke the delicate, discarded edges of each shell, studying the grooves and divots without really seeing them. Instead there’s a hidden turmoil inside of him, a rearranging of furniture. It takes a while to tetris all the pieces together the way he likes, but eventually he seems to make peace with something and the tension slowly leaks from his shoulders. 

“Yes, indeed,” he replies softly. “The more you know.”

The conversation continues onto greener pastures. At one point Crowley shifts in his seat, shaking off the tension like a mongrel does fleas. Under the table, his leg moves again and his ankle just barely brushes against Aziraphale’s. 

It remains there for the rest of the evening.

They don’t talk about it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr!](https://thechekhov.tumblr.com)


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